Many ship covers can be found with the "Welcome to Norfolk" cachet. The pictured cover is from the USS Myles C. Fox and has the additional "ON APOLLO 10 EXPERIMENTAL DEPLOYMENT" and is in many space collector's collections.

First the bad news. Since there had already been multiple recoveries of the Apollo capsule and astronauts it didn't make much sense that there would be any "experimental" training for the recovery unless there was some new recovery technique. In researching this cover it turns out that the USS Myles C. Fox deployment had nothing to do with Apollo 10.

But there is good news. In January 1969, the USS Myles C. Fox helped make history when she participated in the Apollo 11 program, taking NASA's quarantine trailer on sea trials from Norfolk, Virginia. The trailer was used by the astronauts in July 1969 when they returned from the first moon landing.

So if you are looking for this Apollo 11 cover you probably have to find one in with the Apollo 10 covers...

Ross

Nice cover Tom.

I was wondering if the cover could be explained as follows. There was a short period in which it was not certain which mission would conduct the first Moon landing. I believe there were rumours that it could be Apollo 10. This cover was issued before either Apollo 10 or 11. Is it possible that the cachet designer just picked Apollo 10 because it was the next mission and a final decision hadn't be made as to which would be the first Moon landing mission and thus use the quarantine trailer?

yeknom-ecaps

Ross - very possible explanation as there were multiple flights before the moonlanding would take place.